Palace Cinema, Huddersfield
The Palace opened on Bank Holiday Monday, 1909, as a large music hall and occasionally showed films up to the end of the 1920’s. Gutted by fire in 1935, the Palace Theatre was rebuilt in the Art Deco style and presented a continuous programme of live variety shows. This rebuild made conversion to a ‘super cinema’ easy, as it was equipped with a projection box, but never screened films due its success as a theatre with stars such as Gracie Fields, George Formby and Sandy Powell packing the house. In fact, variety continued up to the late-1950’s. The Palace Theatre reopened as the Continental Music Hall in 1959, but this failed and it became a bingo hall in 1963 continuing up to 1997, with the interior of the building remaining intact.
In later years the the building was converted to a Chicago Rock Cafe and later Shout nightclub. The stage was still used for live acts, with the circle and gallery partitioned off. It last use has been as a nightclub named Society, which was closed in late-2010 due to bad behaviour of its customers.
In 2008, plans were proposed to demolish the Palace Theatre to extend the Kingsgate Shopping Centre. These were turned down, but an appeal was launched and the plans for demolition were approved. The facade of the theatre has been retained, but the interior was gutted in October 2014. The building now provides student accommodation for Huddersfield’s flourishing University.
Palace Cinema, Huddersfield
The Palace opened on Bank Holiday Monday, 1909, as a large music hall and occasionally showed films up to the end of the 1920’s. Gutted by fire in 1935, the Palace Theatre was rebuilt in the Art Deco style and presented a continuous programme of live variety shows. This rebuild made conversion to a ‘super cinema’ easy, as it was equipped with a projection box, but never screened films due its success as a theatre with stars such as Gracie Fields, George Formby and Sandy Powell packing the house. In fact, variety continued up to the late-1950’s. The Palace Theatre reopened as the Continental Music Hall in 1959, but this failed and it became a bingo hall in 1963 continuing up to 1997, with the interior of the building remaining intact.
In later years the the building was converted to a Chicago Rock Cafe and later Shout nightclub. The stage was still used for live acts, with the circle and gallery partitioned off. It last use has been as a nightclub named Society, which was closed in late-2010 due to bad behaviour of its customers.
In 2008, plans were proposed to demolish the Palace Theatre to extend the Kingsgate Shopping Centre. These were turned down, but an appeal was launched and the plans for demolition were approved. The facade of the theatre has been retained, but the interior was gutted in October 2014. The building now provides student accommodation for Huddersfield’s flourishing University.